Most people feel the big years. The ones that end in zero. At the very least, the ones that end in five.

Me, that’s never bothered. There’s a running joke about my thirtieth birthday. I went from partying every weekend, to having a house, wife and two kids all in one day, when I took possession of my new house with my then-future wife and her two kids. Some people would call that a reaction to turning thirty. Settling down. Getting older.

But it didn’t matter to me. I loved her and her kids and I wanted a house. The date was circumstantial. I didn’t actually feel like I was older and needed to settle down until I was thirty-three. On my thirtieth birthday, all I felt was drunk, happy and in love.

At forty, nothing changed. People kept making comments but it didn’t bother me again. Forty was just another day.

Unfortunately, forty-one feels like thirty-three. Like something dramatic has changed. Like it’s last call and I’m scrambling. There’s a sense of urgency at forty-one, like this is the last possible kick at the can for me and the whole writing/happiness thing. As though if I don’t get it now, I don’t get it.

And that’s scary.

Intellectually, I know that’s not necessarily true. Plenty of people find joy and peace and purpose and love and success later in life. Plenty come into money as they get older.

Plenty don’t. In fact, I’d say a majority don’t. Most die still scrounging for change, jaded and resigned to their fate, angry it’s over and that it could have been different, looking for someone to blame.

Hell, the entire right wing of current politics could be said to be based on those very concepts.

I don’t want that for me. I want better.

I used to want the universe. All of existence, reshaped in a protopian image that I gave them.

I think maybe I’ll have to settle for a little joy in myself, in my own corner of the world.

Increasingly, it seems like that may be all anyone can do, and that indeed, it’s the only way to change anything in this life.

Be satisfied with where you are and what you are now, and with what you have, without resigning yourself to not having any better. Things can always be better.

That’s how I beat forty-one.

]]>http://highprimate.com/2018/07/13/forty-one/feed/0Here’s The Thinghttp://highprimate.com/2018/07/12/heres-the-thing/
http://highprimate.com/2018/07/12/heres-the-thing/#respondThu, 12 Jul 2018 17:12:47 +0000http://highprimate.com/?p=157I was going to write about ultraviolence in fiction today, but I’ve been sidetracked by a pair of incredibly skewed tweets-slash-tweet streams that didn’t make any sense.

The first involved a woman stating that the word billionaire should be a slur, and that no one with that much money should be considered anything other than a criminal. Then, she proceeded to attack Elon Musk.

The second started, “Hey, White People” and proceeded to tell a harrowing story of racism at a Starbucks and a restaurant. Well, harrowing in the sense that an overentitled woman cut in front of her for her coffee and another woman took really long to decide what she wanted to order from a menu at a restaurant.

Ironically, my mother told me the same holding everyone up story about some dude a few hours later. She’s an old white lady. Another lady blatantly cut in front of me and my wife at Ribfest in the beer line last week, same as in the second woman’s story, and completely ignored us calling her out on it. In fact, she invited two friends to cut in with her, and then they took their time ordering, even though the number of items to choose from could be counted on two hands with no thumbs. We were all white.

Fortunately, not everything is about race, and nothing about the woman’s tweets suggested it was other than her perception of the situation. These people could have been everyday, inconsiderate, oblivious assholes or morons. In fact, removing the woman’s assumptions about motivation, that’s exactly how it read: as a thing that happens to millions of people of all race, colour and sexuality every day, because some people are inconsiderate jerks.

Now, I am far, far, far from the right wing, screw PC-culture type person. I think Donald Trump is a horrific human being who is a flat-out bigot and wannabe dictator. I am literally terrified of where this is all going to end with him, and will do whatever I can to resist he and all his ilk. I am not a laissez-faire supporter and I absolutely believe minorities get the short end of the stick at best. It’s abhorrent how some people can’t see beyond skin tone or gender. It’s also unfortunate so many people get caught up in their own sounding chambers that they can’t see other perspectives beyond their own viewpoint, including that garden variety assholes may not be behaving as they are because of someone else’s skin colour, but just an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

As far as the first tweet goes, a few things stand out to me.

First, because I understand history, the idea that all rich folk are evil parasites is a false assumption. Logic dictates that because all Bs are Cs, and some As are Bs, it does not follow that all As are Cs. In plainer terms, if all greedy parasites are evil, and some rich people are greedy parasites, then that means that some rich people are not. All As are not Cs. All rich people are not greedy parasites.

And believe me, I think there’s a lot of issues with capitalism, or rather, more accurately, corporatism. There’s nothing inherently wrong with an exchange of goods and services or with money. Money’s just a tool. It how we use it that makes the difference. It’s how we barter, whether we are fair and honest about it that determines if our money is used for good or evil.

Class wars result in dictators or mobs, neither of which are good. The idea that all rich folk are evil is what led to communism, and ask any of the countries that converted over the last century and a bit how that’s worked out for them.

And it’s not like rich folk haven’t contributed. Most of the improvements and technology we use in our daily lives is the result of technology. Technology someone got rich off. And for sure, there were people that did shady or downright evil shit to make money off us that didn’t contribute a goddamn thing. But to condemn all rich folk for the shitty behaviour of some of them is folly. And to condemn Elon Musk? The technology he’s producing looks like it will have beneficial effects that could butterfly for generations.

Of all the shitty rich people out there to go after (the Koch brothers, Mark Zuckerberg, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, if he’s actually a billionaire and not just faking it), why Musk?

That’s a sense of entitlement that goes beyond we’re getting screwed by some legitimate greedy parasites, which is justifiable. That’s I believe the world owes me, and rich people owe me most of all.

But here’s the thing: in reality, we are responsible for our own behaviour. Outside forces definitely impact us, but the direction our lives take is generally up to us. No one actually owes you anything, unless you’re trading your time, effort, product or services to them.

It’s not up to Elon Musk to save the world, or to gratify everyone on the planet. He’s human, like everyone else, and has limited time and energy. He’s also not, because no one is, perfect. The expectation that someone is not allowed to have a little bit of fun (launching a car into space) or make a mistake (overplanning the rescue of the Thai kids) because they have money is to ignore their fundamental humanity. The fact that he, like everyone of us, including the girl who made the original tweet, are fallible. We are all fallible.

I, for one, watched the stream of the Falcon Heavy launch with absolute wonder. The possibilities for humanity’s future left me with more hope than I’d had for a long time. If that took a car in space, so be it.

No one can cure all the world’s ills, nor should they be expected to. If you’re abdicating your responsibility to fix the things in your control because you think Elon Musk should do it, fuck you. That’s entitlement on a scale that will not serve you.

We all have our own lives and interests, and it’s an impossible burden to carry everyone else’s needs with you. We do what we can, by creating social safety nets, funding health care and providing education. We can be nice to each other and control our little bit. We can help others when we’re able.

But at the end of the day, we are responsible for our lives. No one will ever understand us like we understand ourselves. If you’re pissed off because someone else has more than you, then take responsibility for that and go change it.

I don’t have a lot, and it’s the choices I’ve made that led me here. Not Elon Musk. Not even the parasites, though they’ve not made it easier. I could have more. I could have made a lot of money, ethically and in a field I love, if I’d made different choices. I could be stunningly happy and rich, but I am not. I could be stunningly happy and poor. Again, choices. We make them every day, all day, and they are in our control. Our outlook, our words, our actions and our willingness to see beyond our own perspective. All in our control.

If we’re not happy with all or parts of our lives, we are the people best equipped to change it.

And it’s not anyone’s fault but mine. I made the wrong choices that led me here. I still make them. But I’m to make better choices, and if I can do it well, my life will improve. If not, I’ll learn from it. What I won’t do is just blame everyone else and do nothing. And it sure doesn’t mean it’s easy. Or that I can’t stand up for myself and call out others’ bad behaviour. I will try to understand it first, and not attribute malice where evidence doesn’t suggest it.

It scares me that the left is moving so far into the blame/entitlement paradigm. It makes it too easy for dogma and hypocrisy to creep in and becomes hard to defend. It makes us easy targets. We need to keep the upper hand – logic, understanding and the ability to keep perspective and have constructive conversations – if we want to succeed.

Vitriolic ranting and dogmatic assumptions of intent and behaviour will get us nowhere.

And as always, there’s the idea that the Left/Right divide is a false dichotomy. We are not an either/or. We’re a thousand sided die, in a ball pit of other thousand sided dice. Step out of the us/them mentality. It’s a much bigger and better world and offers more alternatives than just either/or.

Otherwise, myopia’s bound to set in, or tunnel vision, and that’s not good for anybody.

]]>http://highprimate.com/2018/07/12/heres-the-thing/feed/0Environment And Technologyhttp://highprimate.com/2018/07/07/environment-and-technology/
http://highprimate.com/2018/07/07/environment-and-technology/#respondSat, 07 Jul 2018 14:53:33 +0000http://highprimate.com/?p=174I often find myself torn between the positives and negatives of progress and the desire to maintain natural resources.

I call it my vegan conflict.

I am not a vegan, for many reasons. The first is that I rarely like vegan food. I have tried recipe after recipe because I love fuzzy animals and want to save them, but it all has that mealy, almost mid-eastern/Moroccan flavour that I’ve never been a fan of. And as any expert on diet or exercise will tell you, it’s the diet you’ll follow or the exercise you enjoy that will make the difference. If you hate running, you won’t run and thereby, won’t exercise if that’s your exercise plan. If you don’t like food that tastes like it was spiced in an Aladdin movie, you’re not likely to follow that particular meal plan. Plus, tofu, no matter how many times I’m told it takes on the taste of whatever it’s cooked with, still has a texture issue with me. It’s still like eating a sponge.

Hence, not vegan.

I am still torn, of course. I want to save animals as much as the next person. I’m a huge animal person. But I’m also a huge people person and when I see Peruvian farmers losing everything and rainforests being razed for our new quinoa obsession, I start questioning the efficacy of such an approach.

Technology has brought us many amazing things. As much as social media is blamed for Donald Trump’s rise to power, it’s also been a very effective tool of making it difficult for him to disseminate lies. It’s been an effective tool for uniting people against his fascistic tendencies, which makes it more difficult for him to operate.

Without the internet, authoritarian regimes rise to power through state-run propaganda outlets and a general atmosphere of ignorance and secrecy. In the social media era, it takes willful ignorance to allow that kind of unchecked stupidity and abuse.

Technology has all kinds of abuses. It also has all kinds of benefits. Unfortunately, sometimes, these don’t line up with the natural world, so it behooves us to make a choice. I don’t think living “off the land” without technology is better than living in society with it. I do think there are benefits and drawbacks to both, but overall, I’d rather have medical science than herbal remedies for our long-term health. That doesn’t mean there aren’t benefits to herbal remedies. They just aren’t likely to cure cancer.

It’s all about choices, and avoiding the either/or paradigm. Technology is a tool, same as money. Money isn’t good or evil; how we use it is. Our bodies aren’t good or evil; how we use them makes them so. If we choose to use our hands to heal, that’s a choice. If we choose murder, that’s another. Most of us are a mix; it’s a rare human that is totally good or totally evil. We make choices.

I choose to live with technology while trying to make choices that don’t hurt the natural world. I enjoy a spirited online life, but I refuse to let it define me. I can detach and enjoy a beach or forest or mountain range without requiring its visual through a lens.

We spend too much time on dichotomies.

It’s not environment or technology, environment or progress. It’s and. That a choice we have to make.

See, I used to do this thing. I would close my eyes, clear my head and boom. New person. All the faults of the past vanished, in a flash.

Just a perfect, present, thoughtful, honest and all-around kick ass person who did everything the best of his abilities, and was always happy and cool and amazing. Oh, and a great lay too.

Yeah.

You can probably imagine how that actually worked out.

It wouldn’t be long before old habits crept back in, my brain became overloaded with the usual drivel and overwork and things spun out of control, deep depression, rinse, repeat.

Close eyes, deep breath, hey, perfect person again!

The problem is now that we’re far too busy idealizing what we should be instead of recognizing that ideals are static figures, and the point is not to get to stasis, but to get better continuously.

And that can’t happen all at once. Improvement is always incremental. And never complete.

I think that’s what appealed to me about kaizen, the art of taking small steps for regular improvement. It’s a policy I adopted rather than radical re-imagining, which doesn’t work, because we are not a hard drive to be formatted at will.

And it’s worked for me. I still cringe at my own past behaviour, and sometimes current, but if I look at who I am now and what I can do versus where I was ten, five or even one year ago, it’s a vast difference. I’d start the same project, over and over again, numbing myself to its potential and ultimately, abandoning it. I’d make the same effort toward relationships or projects or this blog and then let it slide.

I’d look at who I was and give up. Incremental improvement means I don’t have to. The need for improvement is automatic. It’s accepted. It’s a critical part of the process. If there’s nothing left to improve in your life or yourself, you’re dead.

That’s the problem with ideals. They’re static.

The only true ideal is fluid. It’s imperfect and changing. It has setbacks and failings. It learns from them. It tries things to improve them. It course-corrects as best it can, so that the general trend is always better.

Do better, as Justin Jordon once wrote. That’s really the only commandment, in my opinion.

Do better. Be better. Try.

Because static stays still and decays. Motion only grows.

]]>http://highprimate.com/2018/06/18/kaizen/feed/0Religionhttp://highprimate.com/2018/06/16/religion/
http://highprimate.com/2018/06/16/religion/#respondSat, 16 Jun 2018 18:48:22 +0000http://highprimate.com/?p=147I don’t believe in God. At last, I don’t believe in any God that’s perpetuated by religion. It’s entirely possible that there’s a divine intelligence out there, but to interpret it accurately would also require a mind that big, and no one on this planet has that kind of juice.

I liken it to an amoeba trying to understand all the intricate details of quantum mechanics. A being or force that powerful would operate on a level so far above us that our interpretation is limited at best and utter bullshit at most (and by that, I mean that anyone who actually claims to understand God’s will and morality is full of it).

It’s a little bit like looking at a stipple painting through a microscope. We can see small parts of it, little dots to connect here and there, but until we can step away from the microscope (which we can’t, because in this metaphor, the microscope is the ability to perceive the world around us), we won’t be able to see the full picture.

In my mind, that means a few things. First, if there is a being operating on that level, it’s almost pointless for us to pursue a total knowledge of it. Ultimately, it becomes irrelevant, the way time is relevant when referencing the age of the universe, but otherwise irrelevant in terms of actual application in our very short, very limited lifespan. We don’t have an infinite timeline, so we have to learn and do what we can with what little time we do have.

(Note: That doesn’t meant we can’t or shouldn’t contemplate the past or the future, or try to uncover the mysteries of the multiverse. It just means that we shouldn’t spend a bunch of time worrying what an omnipotent, all-powerful being thinks of us.)

Secondly, it means that every religion that claims knowledge of a higher being’s intentions and ethics is full of shit. They’re either passing along dogma learned from generations past or making it up completely in order to control you (and probably steal your money).

No assumption you are told to believe on faith alone should ever be anything other than an exercise in speculation or imagination. Those things can be helpful (see Einstein picturing himself riding the end of a beam of light), but as dogma, it’s something to avoid.

If the assumption you are to believe on faith comes unsupported by anything other than tradition or opinion or “because I said so”, it’s bullshit and you should stay far away from it.

There’s nothing wrong with speculation or imagination. Most discoveries and creations start with exactly those things. Our best ideas, our most beautiful art, our most inspiring fiction, comes from exactly these places.

The problem comes when it’s accepted as fact without evidence, as truth without reality. You know the old saying, how politicians use the truth to spin lies and writers use lies to reveal truth?

Religion uses lies to… well, control you and steal your stuff. They mask lies as truth, so that when you accept the lies, you become complicit.

And the deeper into the dogma you go, the less the likelihood that you’ll ever see beyond it.

Also, in Leviticus, God threatens to make you eat your own children if you don’t obey him, in the midst of a pestilence and destruction rant, so maybe that’s not consistent with the whole New Testament love everyone bit, which maybe ought to be a pretty good indicator of how true all this is.

My point is that time is short. You don’t have a lot of it, so don’t waste it on things that don’t make sense and are just meant to control your mind and confuse your heart.

Life’s too precious to spend it on anything other than the things that make you happy. If you’re a kind person who enjoys helping others and making people happy, do that.

Still, I hate the idea of not allowing for criticism. That seems to be the way the world’s headed, where everyone wants to not be criticized at all, and that, to me, is not healthy.

It’s enabling.

I love Mark Millar, for example. Kick-Ass was a terrific series (although part 2 went off the rails) and the first Kingsman movie was terrific.

Chrononauts, on the other hand, despite the gorgeous art by Sean Murphy, was a huge miss, for me. It was big and audacious and full of potential, but then, it all got crammed into four issues, with little to no character development, motivations that seemed to come out of nowhere with no build-up or foreshadowing, and relationship resolutions that weren’t any kind of pay-off because they didn’t have anywhere near enough setup to care about the people or relationships in the first place.

The problem, in this case, is a lack of time and space. It’s like trying to cram all eight Star Wars movies in to a half-hour sitcom.

Lots of potential for world-building and character exploration, but it wasn’t given the time to flesh all that out.

To me, that’s fair criticism. And though we want to support our creators, we shouldn’t hype things up beyond what they are. Nor should we just ignore them.

The problem with the no criticism approach is that it starts cementing into place things that just aren’t true. Sure, there’s misunderstandings and often, critiques can be unfair or uninformed or straight up biased. Don’t ever ask me to review a musical movie or TV show, because I’ll crucify it. To me, forcing songs into movies or TV shows where it isn’t natural to the plot (aka Marty McFly playing Johnny Be Good or Earth Angel) is exactly that: forced.

Music and visual arts go together wonderfully, when done in context. But the second an emotional scene requires a character to burst into song or choreographed dance a la Moulin Rouge, I’m out. To me, you’ve lost any sense of natural flow or authentic emotion, and now you’re just forcing me to endure. If I’m enduring your show, it ought to be because I feel nervous tension at what’s happening, not just waiting to get back to the actual plot and development of the thing.

See? I should never review musicals. I’m biased against the very premise.

And I’m a guy who creates playlists to connect songs to scenes in the books and stories I write. I love the way music fuses with other arts to elevate it to something more than itself on its own. But outside of animated movies, no one should ever burst into random song without having a legitimate reason to do so.

It takes me so out of the moment due to its unnatural feel that I lose any interest in the plot. It has to have context. It has to make sense. Moulin Rouge was forced garbage, that could only be loved by the pretentious who don’t mind them butchering good songs for no reason.

But that’s all opinion and taste.

Which is why I don’t watch or review musicals, nor should I. We’ll leave that to the people who actually like that style of entertainment.

My point is that without feedback, we can’t improve. The trick is picking out what’s valid and what’s just another person’s bias or motivated by some other agenda (aka, my dislike of Mamma Mia/Sound Of Music/La La Land-style musicals).

It may suck to hear people weren’t thrilled with your work. Not everyone will be. But proper feedback can be critical to future development. Ignoring it or pretending like we just shouldn’t criticize each other won’t help.

You can’t fix problems if you don’t know they’re there. And they sure won’t get fixed by ignoring them, or letting someone tell you how that problem is actually a feature or just misunderstood.

Truth is always more important than whether or not someone’s feelings get hurt. Doesn’t mean we have to be dicks about it, but we can’t ignore reality either.

No one ever improved anything by pretending it didn’t exist. Problems aren’t solved through ignorance.

There’s a million different names. The problem is they all suffer from the same defect.

Yes, getting it all out of your head into someplace you can easily reference it is great.

Not constantly checking for reference and losing the mental flexibility to adapt to needs or desires isn’t.

That’s what I found under the David Allen approach. You’re supposed to flow like water, but the whole thing is so rigid and detailed and requires constant checking and updates, that you end up spending more time on the organizational aspects than the actual doing of the thing.

It’s important to capture the big stuff, I believe. The things you can’t miss. But other than that, fuck it. Let it slide.

Do what you say you’re going to do, and do what you want to do and don’t do another goddamned thing.

Organization, to me, is doing just enough to keep your focus, while not losing any of the things you committed to in order to make life better.

That’s fucking critical.

At the end of the day, all actions are intended to bring us to bliss, but not all actions can get us there. Everything we do, we do to bring us closer to happiness. The problem is, we’re just really bad at it.

So we have to learn to pick and choose. If a project or job or checklist isn’t making you feel good, isn’t helping you grow and have a joyful life, then fuck that thing.

It’s like an abusive relationship or a bad friend. Sometimes, we keep them around because it’s easier or because we’re comfortable. Used to it, even if it frustrates us.

But it’s dragging us down. If you hate running around trying to keep everything in your head, then offload it somewhere you’ll check. If you hate having your day programmed by a fucking checklist, then cut every last thing off the list that isn’t absolutely necessary for you to be happy in your life, short and long term.

Hate jogging, but you feel shame at all your friends’ Instagram posts touting their marathon training? Who cares? It doesn’t make you happy. If you feel you need to be ultra-healthy to live a good life (and you probably do at least a little), find something you do like. Maybe you’ll find yoga relaxing. Maybe taking up boxing releases pent up aggression and helps you focus. Maybe it’s a thousand push-ups a week. Maybe it’s just eating half-portions and doing nothing at all.

Who cares?

It’s your life. Do what you need to in order to be happy, and to grow, both right now in the moment and as you go along in the future, and that’s it. Whatever system works for that, even if it’s no system, even if it needs to change every month, do that.

The idea is that no matter what you’re into, it’s cool and everyone should just leave you be, even if it’s not their thing.

I’m totally behind that. I’m not a big fan of fruit or fish. My wife hates dark chocolate, which I love. I’m a massive comic book geek, while my wife’s favourite pastime is looking at beach-themed crafts on Pinterest. Our house is slowly transforming into a San Diego beach loft.

(Don’t get me wrong. I love the beach house theme. She’s also never missed a Marvel movie, so it’s really an imperfect comparison. A better comparison might be someone who is into hardcore thrash being asked to join a My Little Pony fan club. Might not work out.)

The only time, in my mind, when yucking someone’s yum is okay is when it’s actively harmful to themselves or others. If someone’s entire life is going down the shitter because they can’t stop playing Mario Kart, maybe it’s time for an intervention.

If their yum is separating defenseless children from their parents at the border for the sole reason that they’re brown or mocking disabled kids on national television, then they’re fucking monsters, and we should yuck that shit as hard as we can.

I mean, sure, if you’re a doctor or dentist or someone like that, go get accredited. We will all feel better knowing our surgeon has had some prep and been given the thumbs up for it. Then again, the nasty scar on my shoulder (from having a pretty basic lipoma removed) is a testament to the idea that all professions and education levels contain individuals who just don’t give a shit about the work they do.

I’ve seen doctors who’d almost always rather prescribe a drug than actually run tests and once sat with a psychologist whose intake nurse did an infinitely better job of talking to me than he did. He actually wanted to sell me on my former job’s products, rather than discuss the very real issues that saw me have a near breakdown as a result of the environment at that particular job.

Seriously. Here I am, a man who, every day, had to fight to keep himself from driving into oncoming traffic because I hated the environment I worked in so terribly, and all this guy wants to do is ask me prices about our internet.

Not one question about how I was feeling or why I might be that way. Just an hour of him discussing features and pricing (and comparing us negatively to a competitor!), and then a prescription and fuck off.

Honestly. Everyone needs training at any job, from construction to waitressing to oncologists. And I’m not opposed to schools or colleges or education, by any means.

But I’ve never learned well in a classroom environment. A lot of people don’t. And a lot of people, if they were trained to be curious and free thinkers, wouldn’t need to – they could get their education hands-on or by (gasp!) reading a book that wasn’t assigned to them.

Personally, if there are schools, I believe they should be teaching core skills like how to think beyond one’s own viewpoints, or where to find information. Instead, we teach ourselves to be rote and fixed. Education should encourage fluidity first – help people become more open, more curious. More understanding. Then get into specifics.

Nowhere is this less prevalent than an MBA. An absurd amount of money, a ton of debt and what do you get out of it? A little prestige, some networking and a place where you’re a shitty cog who only knows how to kiss ass at a corporate firm?

As far as I can tell, everyone I’ve met that has or pursued an MBA is exactly that. A waste of space whose ego makes them a drag on an organization, rather than a boon. On the other hand, almost every successful start-up owner you read about was someone who was just interested in something, did the leg work to create/learn about/get going with whatever it is they wanted to sell, and learned business along the way.

Almost none of them had the coveted MBA.

Education, in its current form, is interested in churning out a product, and like any good product, fidelity is important. You wouldn’t want to produce a line of handbags or cell phones by making every single one different. It wouldn’t be cost effective, right?

Unfortunately, producing automatons isn’t the approach that generates innovative thought. Like politicians or lawyers, it only generates people who know how to game the system, to get what they want out of it, without giving anything back. Bureaucrats who use arbitrary rules to keep hold of their precious power, in the hope that they’ll get a payout someday, while becoming increasingly miserable.

I may be negative, but I’m negative with a chance of hope. I try to recognize shitty things and shitty behaviour because exposure creates fertile ground for change (and this isn’t limited to the outside world – I do it to myself all the time).

The point is growth. Utopia isn’t about creating a perfect static system, some perpetual motion machine of humanity. It’s about recognizing that growth is the only measuring stick. That utopianism and idealist societies aren’t ends, but ongoing processes.

As long as things get better, as long as behaviour changes for the better, then we are on the right track. Mistakes will happen. There will be setbacks. There will be colossal fuck-ups that make it all seem not worth it. Doesn’t matter. It’s still growth, as long as we don’t let it freeze us (or at least, recognize it has frozen us, and start to thaw ourselves out).

That’s what education is. It’s not about achieving a set state. It’s about achieving an ongoing state. And that’s where most education fails. It’s not about “I’ve completed the curriculum and now I know everything I ever need to.”

It’s about “what else can I learn? Where else can I improve?”

And you don’t need a six figure tuition to tell you that.

Just a willingness to look.

]]>http://highprimate.com/2018/06/07/mbas/feed/0Book Feelhttp://highprimate.com/2018/05/21/book-feel/
http://highprimate.com/2018/05/21/book-feel/#respondMon, 21 May 2018 13:27:16 +0000http://highprimate.com/?p=91It’s been a while. I’ve been meaning to post here more regularly, but between work (like the for-pay type that steals souls and crushes spirits, but feeds the family while I pursue my writing dream-type), a sick cat, spring cleaning and a heavy, heavy dose of editing (second draft in two months!), I’ve had to let the extras fall by the wayside.

My setting is semi-generic, with a hometown based on my own, and an Ontario-based (without saying Ontario outright) extended setting. It’s Canadian content, for sure, but you know, unhappy and super-fatalist. From suicidal fatalist to idealist utopian. That’s my writing career arc, if I can last long enough to do it.

I’m always impressed with those who can create mood and settings so spot-on that you can’t help but feel you’re actually there. My favourite example of this is Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour. The art, the writing, the whole feel of the book is so quintessentially Deep South (and not in a caricature or stereotype way) that one is just sucked in so completely one forgets you live in frozen Canada. Sure, it’s just a gangster/football story.

But the essence of the South permeates so deeply in every aspect of it, from the tones and manners to the jagged artwork, that you can almost feel yourself in the stands at the stadium or standing in the humidity of the swamp.

That, to me, is an impressive achievement, and one I hope to achieve someday when I’m writing something that exists beyond generic town/country/province/state, whatever.

Ashford and Cyrus West have a certain feel, sure. The asylum has a good feel.

But none of them are feeling sticky in the shade or cover your fingers in barbecue sauce from those ribs you just ate with a slice of apple pie to finish it off. None of them make you feel the big stick in your hand or the crunch of bodies lining up on the ten yard line. None of them holy roll. None of them buck hunt. None of them have that simple, sincere focus or carry a Bible and a cross in hand.